In the last edition of this publication I wrote an article titled, “Pray For A Soul.” The theme came from an encouragement and challenge that I put before the congregation a number of weeks ago. As we finished a year long study on evangelism, I encouraged and challenged each member of the class to pray that God would send someone into their life to whom they could reach out with the gospel. I have continued to encourage the class and the congregation to pray that prayer. A number of individuals have shared with me that they have, indeed, been praying that prayer.

Prayer is one of the greatest blessings with which God has blessed us as Christians. The apostle Paul exhorted, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…” (Eph. 6:18), and “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Prayer should be a continual feature of our daily lives.

Truth is an elusive quality today. Everybody talks about the truth. Everybody claims to want the truth and to place a high value upon the truth. The truth is, though, we are great abusers of truth. We really want truth to conform to our desires as to what we want the truth to be, and we have become quite skillful at reshaping and redefining truth in order that it will conform. With many people truth is no longer a set of observable, rational, objective facts. Rather, it has become “the truth according to me...” In many cases we are no longer left with the real truth, but instead a distortion thereof. What is even worse is that many people accept distorted truth as the real thing, if the case has been made persuasively enough.

Mother’s day! We love our mothers, and rightfully so. Much has been written about the special, nurturing love of a mother. It’s not that a mother’s love is better or more important than that of a father. It’s just different, unique. I believe we can see God’s handiwork when we observe how He designed the family. A child needs both the special love of a mother and the different but equally special love of a father. Both are needed for the full nurturing, molding and development of a child in the home.

“Can I trust you?” is not a casual question. It’s a credit to a person’s trustworthiness to not even have to have the question asked of him. It’s simply known that he can be trusted. Trust is a precious thing, not something to take lightly. Marriages stand or fall on the ability of spouses to trust one another. Careers are made or broken, depending upon how trustworthy a person is. A person’s word is taken or rejected according to how much trust can be placed in what he says. Sometimes, lives are placed in the trust of one person or another.